New Alabama law bans gender-affirming care for transgender kids

A law went into effect in Alabama on Sunday that effectively makes it a felony to provide gender-affirming medical treatment to transgender youth across the Yellowhammer State.

Although Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill on April 8, a federal judge is considering whether to block the legislation. For now, however, it is a crime punishable by up to ten years in prison to provide transgender youth under the age of 19 with puberty blockers, hormone therapy or other medical procedures, NBC News reported.

Opposition organizations including the Human Rights Campaign and GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders immediately filed the lawsuit on behalf of parents of four Alabama transgender youth, two physicians and a minister, arguing the ban would cause “immediate and irreparable” harm to the plaintiffs while violating their constitutional rights.

The U.S. Department of Justice has joined the case, saying the Alabama law "violated the equal protection clause" of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment.

However, after a two-day hearing concluded on Friday, U.S. District Judge Liles Burke gave no indication on when he will rule on the motion seeking to temporarily halt enforcement of the ban while a lawsuit is pending, local outlets reported.

While many conservative activists have applauded the law as a safeguard for children and parental rights, opponents have warned that the legislation is harmful, unnecessary and would cause serious hard to an already vulnerable population.  

Peer reviewed studies published in esteemed medical journals have found that gender-affirming care helps saves young lives by reducing the already high incidence of depression and suicide among trans youth.

One study titled “Association Between Gender-Affirming Surgeries and Mental Health Outcomes,” for example, compared the psychological distress, substance use, and suicide risk of 3,559 transgender people who had undergone gender-affirming surgery with those of 16,401 transgender people who desired gender-affirming surgery but had not yet undergone any.

According to the data, transgender people who had received one or more gender-affirming surgical procedures had a 42% reduction in the odds of experiencing past-month psychological distress, a 35% reduction in the odds of past-year tobacco smoking, and a 44% reduction in the odds of past-year suicidal ideation.

Nevertheless, medical experts have also stated that gender-reassignment surgery for children under the age of 18 is extremely rare and normally takes place only after years of treatment in cases where the patient’s wishes are unwavering.

The fear that access to gender-affirming treatment has grown in recent months, however, and a recent survey from the Trevor Project, a non-profit focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth, found that 93% of trans and nonbinary youth said they worry trans people could be “denied access to gender-affirming medical care due to state or local laws.”

Transgender rights have emerged as a major issue in the lead up to November’s midterm elections and Republican lawmakers have already introduced hundreds of bills across state legislatures which directly target trans youth.